


cassandra

by carolinka



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-27 02:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18729916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinka/pseuds/carolinka
Summary: Steve Rogers waxing poetic about Tony Stark.(From their first interaction to beginning of Endgame.)





	cassandra

**Author's Note:**

> I love pining!steve, crying over the saviour of universe aka love of his life

After some years spent together, it’s easy to recognise the first moment Steve fucked up what might’ve been between them: “Mr. Stark.” Probably the only time Tony got what he exactly meant, for a long time, until Siberia. (There was always so much they were afraid to tell each other, hidden beneath fancy words and taunts, averted eyes.) “Mr. Stark is my dad, call me Tony,” he had heard Tony tell Bruce once and at that time, it was hard to pinpoint what bothered him so much about that simple sentence. At that point he’d already accepted Howard as a friend and Howard as a father were completely at odds. “I’d do the exact opposite what my old man would’ve done,” was his first clue but it shouldn't have been. Tony had been dropping hints for Steve to pick up on for some time already. 

Having a strong memory is such a bitch sometimes.

Tony would’ve been a lot more gentler with him, he imagines, if he had just called him Iron Man, or Sir, or even Tony. Anything other than Mr. Stark. He would’ve explained the modern technology with simpler terms than the incompetent SHIELD agents, not bombard him with latest inventions that he just can’t keep up with without any basics. He’d talk to him about what went right and what went wrong in the last 70 years, objectively. Steve would’ve been probably be a lot more horrified about American history, because even if Tony’s a patriot in his own way, his true love is the earth, as a whole. He would take him sightseeing, not the regular walking tours for tourists but a ticket to see glimpses of Tony’s life. He’d start calling him Steve instead of Cap.

It is so easy to be charmed by him, to be caught in his spell. For Steve, it’s as natural as blinking to love him, even if he hadn’t realised it for so long. But he is also not an easy man to understand. He was the epitome of everything about future that made him want to curl and hide back then. Everything Tony said went over his head and he was too proud to ask for clarifications, afraid to be mocked. Tony was capable of driving a saint crazy on his tame days but he seemed to lash out whenever it came to Steve and Steve, who never backed down from anything, was afraid of what Tony Stark might say to him.

There is only a few people who can keep up with his mind, even less with his emotions. Steve has always been better at understanding Tony’s emotions. From the beginning, he thinks they understood each other better than anyone. Too well maybe. That was why every word found the thinnest place to strike. Every word made the other bleed. 

He hated Tony so much for calling him on his bullshit, for not letting him hide his head in the sand. What Fury, Coulson, or all of those SHIELD shrinks chose to ignore was the grief. Everyone has already forgotten about the Howling Commandos, about Peggy Carter, about Bucky. About his mom. And they expected Steve to forgot them as well, get the fuck on with it, run around in a spandex suit.

“We’re not soldiers,” Tony had snarled back then, a blow to the mountains he made up from denial and ignorance. A deep crack in his façade. He looked at Tony, his uneeringly beautiful eyes bright with unshed tears and he thought, _human_. And then his sight gone black with fury, _shut the fuck up, shut up shut up die die die how dare you do this to me._ He envied him there for being brave enough to handle it, an ugly, volatile creature brewing under his sternum.

***

It was on the news after Tony went ahead and destroyed all of his suits, obviously. Of course it was. He felt that old awful creature awaken as he watched the news for two days straight, only moving to change the channel. He thought the creature was gone, that he managed to have his peace with Tony. (He had even gone ahead and confessed to Natasha that he admired Tony in uncertain terms when the two of them where hanging out after Chitauri. Natasha’s face had crumbled for a second when he said, “He is the most human out of all of us, isn’t he?”)

He watched Pepper and Tony, sickeningly in love and he hated them both, because he wanted to be them, either of them. But he didn’t have the heart to be Tony and what he had wasn’t enough for Tony to love him.

***

He was never a brave man when it came to Tony Stark.

_it’s been twenty five years he got over it he doesn’t need to know it’ll just hurt him he’ll hate bucky and he’ll hate me I can’t take it I need him I need him_

***

There was pre-Wanda Tony and post-Wanda Tony. For everyone who knew him at all, it was obvious. How Tony flinched any time Wanda is within touching distance or how he seemed to lock himself in his workshop when he was in tower and he was hardly at home anyway. He hardly said anything to them, just fought alongside them silently, sent them upgrades.

Natasha seemed the most sympathetic towards him out of everyone, probably because she was as unhappy about Wanda as him, if not more. She was always muttering something under her breath around Wanda in various languages. A few times Wanda had the courage to tell her to say it to her face and after a few sessions of Natasha chewing out Wanda and absolutely wrecking her, they just let Natasha have at Wanda in her own terms. She was touching Tony comfortingly all the time, hands caressing his hair gently, a kiss on the cheek. They looked magical together, like Adam and Eve, a bit too intimate to be friends. He’d have been jealous (he was, god he was) if hadn’t been there to witness their dynamic for years.

He caught Tony in the kitchen one day, after a two week absence. He had a plastic spoon in his mouth and a tray of food he seemed  to be smuggling out. He winced when he spotted Steve and wow, no one should be this uncomfortable in their own home. He kind of felt like those bullies for turning Tony into a terrified deer.

“Bodily functions finally caught up to you, huh?” he smiled, tugging the spoon out of his mouth and Tony gave him a hesitant smile back. He was still radiating _i’m gonna shit my pants_ vibes, but his shoulders had visibly relaxed and he shrugged. “Can’t run forever Cap.”

“I missed you Tony,” he said honestly, because this might be the only chance to see Tony in months, if the way Tony kept disappearing for longer periods indicated anything.

Tony had looked baffled at best and suspicious at worst. He had narrowed his eyes at him as if he was trying to understand the joke. “Busy times,” he had said, smiling but it’s his talking-about-Howard smile. “Hey, you can always let me know if you need anything. Just tell FRIDAY.”

Steve frowns and takes the tray from Tony a bit harshly. “I missed you, Tony, not your gadgets.”

Tony looks even more uncomfortable, with his hands free and looked anywhere but him. He settled on a spot on the ground in the end and shuffled his feet like a kid waiting to be scolded. “Thanks, I guess,” he chuckles nervously. “Thought I’d give you guys some space to settle in.”

“We’ve been here for almost three years,” Steve says slowly, like talking to a toddler. Tony shrugs, “Yeah, I know, but now there is also Wanda and Clint is still snappy with me whenever he’s here…”

Steve cuts him of sharply, “This is your fucking house.”

Tony head snapped up to him at that and stared at him as if he was a puzzle he was stuck on and Steve realised this is the first time he had swore in front of Tony. He cleared his throat, “Do you mind me hanging out in the workshop with you for a while?”

Tony shook his head silently, still watching him like a hawk. “My workshop is your workshop.”

It was a matter of time after that, for two of them to disappear for days at a time. No one had ever said anything but I was hung up in the air: “It’s going to end in a disaster.”

***

“I can take anything from anyone but not from you,” Tony whispered one night, eyes far away. Their legs were tangled under the covers and Tony’s nimble fingers were drumming on Steve’s chest. They had been together for six months then, and every single day Steve was mourning the years they’ve missed. “I really hate that you have that power over me.”

“I really don’t think you understand what you are to me if you think I am less vulnerable than you, Tony,” he said softly, big hands caressing his lover gently. “You have been the only thing in this century I could lean on. Emonitonally,” he shrugged. “I hated it here before we got closer. After you it became bearable. Then I was happy whenever I was with you. Now you made this century my home.”

Tony smiles dopily, still a bit high on endorphins, “Guess we’ll just have to trust each other on that one.”

He didn’t have the guts to look him in the eye after that and see the trust and love there. He knew every moment he didn’t tell Tony about his parents he was going down a road that was hard to recover from.

***

_“Did you know?”_

It was easy to predict what was going to happen after he finally told the truth to that question. He went into a robot mode, only goal being keep Bucky alive. He could see that Tony was pulling his punches back, considering they still weren’t blown to hell.

“I can do this all day,” he said and regretted the second it was out of his mouth. Tony was well aware what that meant to him, a defiance against the bullies. A bully, which Tony wasn’t. A victim. Like Bucky.

“He’s my friend,” he pleaded.

“ _So was I_ ,” and that was it, Tony hardly punched back after that, just let the two of them bring him to his knees. Steve knew Bucky thought there was a real fight going on but he was there to watch Tony work on his suit, he knows what it was capable of.

It was shame that made him strike his shield through Tony’s heart.

***

Tony is gone. They’ve lost. Separately.

Back then Tony had asked him “Are you familiar with the tale of Cassandra?” and he rolled his eyes, “You are not Cassandra, Tony.” Tony sighed at that but didn’t say anything for a few hours that Steve felt guilty for snapping at him.

Now he realises, Tony _is_ Cassandra. He only wishes it took them less than losing half the universe to accept it.

***

“Can you bring him back?” Natasha asks Carol Danvers, her bloody hands on her impeccable uniform. She is pleading, Steve realises. Danvers looks younger than Natasha but she has this bitter smile like she’s about to break a kid’s heart.

“I can try.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave feedback! :)


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